15-year-old boy critically hurt in drive-by shooting in Englewood

A 15-year-old boy was critically hurt in a drive-by shooting Wednesday in the Englewood neighborhood near an elementary school, his family said.

The boy was walking home from a friend’s house about 4 p.m. when a car drove by and shot at him in an alley in the 6600 block of South May Street, Chicago police and his mother said.

The teen heard four to five shots and was shot once in the lower back, his mother said.

The boy was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital in grave condition, police said. He was awake and talking as of 5:30 p.m., his family said.

“He’s OK because the bullet only went in his tissue,” the boy’s mother said.

At the scene, which is across the street from Perkins Bass Elementary School, police put five markers on the ground. Children played at a nearby playground at Ogden Park.

“It’s just crazy that they’re out here trying to shoot instead of worrying about this [pandemic] going on. They forgot all about the disease that’s going on, and they sit here messing with people that ain’t doing nothing to nobody,” the teen’s mother said. “He’s standing down the street minding his own business, and that’s crazy.”

This is the second 15-year-old to be shot in Englewood this week. On Monday evening, a boy suffered a gunshot wound to the right leg and a graze wound to the neck while walking on a sidewalk.

Over the weekend, a 14-year-old boy was fatally shot in Humboldt Park. Eddie Thigpen was found in the first block of South Springfield Avenue with a gunshot wound to his abdomen, police said.